In 1995 the National Academy of Sciences, through its National Research Council arm, issued a set of national science education standards calling for "dramatic changes" in the way science is taught in grade schools and high schools. Several years later the Kansas State Board of Education appointed a panel of scientists and academics to advise it on bringing state guidelines into conformity with the national standards. As the time drew nigh for the board to vote on accepting the revised guidelines, however, a problem cropped up. Alerted by concerned parents, the board discovered that the National Academy had aggressively promoted evolution into a central "unifying concept" of science education, on a par with such fundamentals as "evidence" and "measurement." Students were to be told definitively that "Natural selection and its evolutionary consequences provide a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms." Even in the murkiest areas of biology such as the origin of life, the academy made clear in its pamphlet Science and Creationism (free when you order a copy of the science standards) that skepticism was not to be countenanced. The academy explicitly warned schools that "'biological evolution' cannot be eliminated from the life science standards." Last August the Kansas board balked. Led by board member Steve Abrams, a doctor of veterinary medicine, a 64 majority declined to adopt the academy's standards on speculative aspects of Darwin's theory, although students' knowledge of "microevolution"--small changes caused by natural selection that can be observed in the laboratory--would still be tested.
American Spectator
December 1, 1999 Documento HTML